Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate has sold a former community-owned Bowls Club to Chinese interests for an alleged $33 million, making a massive profit.
The sale was completed on 26 November and included all four lots of prime real estate in the centre of Surfers Paradise, once owned by the former community organisation, which Tate first began to acquire in 2005, originally under the guise of attempting to rescue the then-struggling club.
Despite controversy dogging his “Crackerjack” style scheme, Tate kept on, acquiring the remaining two publicly-owned Bowls Club greens, even after becoming mayor in 2012, each time for apparently well under market value. The Mayor controversially completed his piecemeal acquisition earlier this year, leading to national condemnation and calls by senior judicial figures for a corruption inquiry into the affair.
Title searches by IA have revealed the four lots previously owned by the Mayor, which once made up the Bowls Club greens, were acquired from Tate last month by a company called Remembrance Holding Pty Ltd. Remembrance Holding (not Holdings) is fully owned by major Chinese developers AW Group.
AW Group is the owner of the Gold Coast high-rise development, Jewel, which was completed in 2020. Jewel comprises three immense 34 to 47-storey beachside towers in Broadbeach, on the Surfers Paradise fringe. Mayor Tate was heavily involved in promoting Jewel’s troubled five-year construction, despite facing scrutiny over his land deals and conflicts of interest.
Tom Tate has now sold the former Surfers Paradise Bowls Club land to AW Group, according to our sources, for $33 million. Tate purchased the land over 20 years ago, for just under $8 million. That signifies a profit of over $25 million (if IA's reliable sources are accurate).
Despite it being completed on 26 November 2025 – two weeks ago at the time of publication – Mayor Tate has made no public announcement about this important transaction.
Only through Independent Australia’s patient investigations has Tate's sale to his close Chinese associates come to light.
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT TATE'S CRACKERJACK BOWLS CLUB TAKEOVER IN OUR TATE TOWN INVESTIGATION.
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